my @inList = split /,(?!(?:[^",]|[^"],[^"])+")/;
# and further on a bit of a mess:
my @outList = ();
for (my $i=0; $i<$flds; $i++) {
  if (! defined $inList[$i] ) {
    $inList[$i] = ""; 
  }
  if ($inList[$i] =~ m/\D/) {
    $inList[$i] = '"'.$inList[$i].'"'; 
  }
  $inList[$i] =~ s/^""/"/;
  $inList[$i] =~ s/""$/"/;
  $inList[$i] =~ s/^"$/""/;
  push @outList, $inList[$i];
}